Calcium, Fish Oil, B Vitamins Could Extend Your Life

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Research released this week highlights the power of fish oil, vitamin B, and calcium to protect against major health conditions.

Nutritional supplements and vitamins are an increasingly popular way
for people to ensure their bodies get the nutrition they need, even if
their diets are less than perfect.

While many claims circulated
about the benefits of vitamins are anecdotal, ongoing clinical research
is helping to separate myth from fact and to show how supplements can
help people stay healthy by lowering the risk of common diseases.

Calcium May Help Women Live Longer

Most
postmenopausal women are encouraged to take calcium supplements to
protect against the degenerative bone disease osteoporosis, but new
research from McGill University in Canada says that 1,000mg of calcium a
day can also help these women live longer.

The Canadian
Multicentre Osteoporosis Study tracked the health of 9,033 Canadians for
12 years, and during that time, 1,160 participants died. Those women
who took calcium supplements fared better than their peers, but the
protective benefits did not extend to men, according to the study,
published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

“Higher
amounts of calcium were potentially linked to longer lifespans in
women, regardless of the source of the calcium,” lead author Dr. David
Goltzman of McGill University said in a press release. “That is, the
same benefits were seen when the calcium came from dairy foods,
non-dairy foods, or supplements.”

Researchers
at the Harvard School of Public Health say fish oil capsules do this by
increasing levels of the hormone adiponectin, which helps the body
regulate glucose levels and inflammation. They reviewed information from
14 clinical trials involving more than 1,200 patients.

“Although
higher levels of adiponectin in the bloodstream have been linked to
lower risk of diabetes and coronary heart disease, whether fish oil
influences glucose metabolism and development of type 2 diabetes remains
unclear,” lead author Jason Wu said in a press release. “However,
results from our study suggest that higher intake of fish oil may
moderately increase blood level of adiponectin, and these results
support potential benefits of fish oil consumption on glucose control
and fat cell metabolism.”

B Vitamins May Help Protect Against Alzheimer’s

University
of Oxford researchers say that vitamin B supplements may protect the
brain from the degenerative effects of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

In
clinical trials, researchers gave patients with an increased risk of
dementia high-dose treatments of the B vitamins folic acid, vitamin B6,
and vitamin B12, and found that the treatments slowed brain shrinkage
over the course of two years.

Researchers say the therapy works
because B vitamins decrease levels of homocysteine, an amino acid, which
in turn decreases the amount of atrophy in the brain's gray matter. In
their study, homocysteine levels were nearly 30 percent lower in those receiving the B vitamin treatment.

“Our
results show that B-vitamin supplementation can slow the atrophy of
specific brain regions that are a key component of the AD process and
that are associated with cognitive decline,” the researchers concluded.
Their study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers
said that further B vitamin supplementation trials should focus on
elderly patients with high homocysteine levels to determine if the
progression to full-fledged dementia can be prevented.